


Comeuppance

by Minervas_Revenge



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:52:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7410142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minervas_Revenge/pseuds/Minervas_Revenge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione pays for her actions of the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comeuppance

Harry stood before the house in disbelief that the occupant was missing. Despite his recent marriage to Ginny, he knew the address of his first love well.

 

Her home gave every indication of being vacant. Harry let himself into the yard and walked around it, looking for anything suspicious. All of the curtains were drawn except on the second floor where one billowed out with the breeze.

 

When Harry stealthily spelled the door open and found a broken wand at his feet, he knew his missing person case had become something else entirely. Helpless guilt filled him. He hadn’t spoken to her in years and they had been friends once.

 

Harry took a calming breath.

 

Procedure dictated that he take in the scene slowly so that his memory could be analyzed later in a Pensieve. Once he was inside with the door shut, he cast a couple of quick spells and was dismayed to find that he was the only living thing in the house.

 

The hall was dark but nothing looked out of the ordinary. Harry moved slowly, glancing from floor to ceiling, filled with foreboding. The first doorway led into the kitchen. It was obvious she’d entertained recently – a package of biscuits sat open on the counter and a serving tray was abandoned in the sink. Harry left the kitchen for a formal dining room.

 

Two places were set but the candles sat unburned in their sticks and the napkins were still folded.

 

Harry forced himself to sweep his gaze over the entire untouched room and move into a small, cozy parlor.

 

Yellow light was shining from an odd angle behind the settee, casting ominous shadows. Immediately, his gaze was drawn to the fallen lamp, severed ropes on the floor and a smudged, brown stain on the chair. Harry had to close his eyes against the well of anxiety rising in him – there were reasons that Aurors had to follow procedures. He wanted to do everything he could to catch the person responsible for hurting her even though he had the sickening feeling that he was too late.

 

Harry deliberately made himself focus on the overturned lamp and move  slowly through the room, sweeping it with his gaze. He couldn’t stop his mind from wondering what had happened. No sign of forced entry – magic or otherwise  and there were two places set in the dining room. She’d expected someone. Harry looked at the writing desk, shifting things around in the hope that he might find a calendar.  When he unearthed one, he wasn’t surprised to find the word “dinner” scrawled across a date three days earlier.

 

Harry’s eyes moved almost of their own accord to the brownish stain and angry guilt flooded him again. Since when had he been a stickler for the rules, anyhow? He stepped out of the parlor and back into the hall, looking for more signs of…violence. There was her broken wand again. It had been placed there deliberately. Harry spun and found himself staring at a carpeted stairwell. A spot caught his eye – it was almost at the top of the steps. 

 

He’d get lectured about it later but he practically flew up the stairs, noting that the spot was the same brown as the stain downstairs. A breeze stirred, coming from a cracked door at the end of the corridor. Wand drawn, Harry took silent steps towards it. Before he knew it, he was pushing open the door, holding his breath in the fragile hope that she wasn’t behind it.

 

But there she was, curled up on her side as if she was sleeping.

 

A pang of familiarity shot through him at the sight of her still body. He knew she was dead but he couldn’t stop himself from walking around her to see her face.

 

“Cho,” he whispered.

 

Long, dark hair covered her features and Harry used his wand to magically nudge her onto her back. One glance at her face told Harry two things: the killer's identity and her next victim.

 

His blood ran cold. He needed to warn Hermione that Marietta Edgecombe had escaped Azkaban again.

 

Harry Disapparated.

 

Across Cho's face a series of boils spelled the word "sneak."

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Hermione Last Drabble Writer Standing competition, round 3, prompt 5: wicked. 500 - 1,000 words.  
> Originally published: July 13, 2008


End file.
